The Lighted Match Part 18

So the Countess had been fired with ardent dreams and later, when the time seemed ripe, it was to her that Jusseret went, and with her that he made his secret alliance.

The ambitions cherished by Marie Astaride to become Louis' queen were secondary to a sincere devotion for Louis himself.

When at the last he had weakened and threatened to crumple, it was she who goaded him back to resolution. When the Duke had gone half-heartedly to his lodge to await the decision of the European Powers, it was she who went to Puntal to direct the conspirators and watch, from the windows of her hotel suite, the fortress on the jetty.

Her one deplorable error had been in mistaking Benton for Martin. This had been natural enough. Though she had never met the "English Jackal,"

she had once or twice seen him at a distance, and she had been misled by a strong resemblance and an excessive eagerness.

The afternoon she had spent on the balcony of her suite, her eyes fixed on the Fortress _do Freres_.

At last, with a wildly beating heart she had seen the King, Von Ritz and the escort ride up to the entrance and disappear. She had waited--waited--waited, her nerves set for the climax, until the continued silence seemed an unendurable shock.

Then the King and escort emerged. She, sitting pale and rigid, saw them mount and turn back unharmed toward the city. Her ears, eagerly set for the detonation which should shake the town and reverberate along the mountain sides, ached with the emptiness of silence.

Across the street a soldier, off duty and in civilian clothes, sat on the sea-wall and whittled. Incidentally he noticed that Madame the Countess was interested beyond the usual in some matter. He was there to notice Madame the Countess. His instructions from Von Ritz had been to keep a record of her goings and comings, and who came to see her or went away.

Therefore, when the King and his small retinue had trotted past the window and when Madame the Countess rose to go in, and when just as she crossed the low sill of the window she suddenly caught up both hands to her throat and fell heavily to the floor, the soldier, whittling a small crucifix, made a record of that also. When a moment later a gentleman whom he had not seen in Puntal for months, but whom he knew as the Count Borttorff, because that gentleman had formerly been Major of his battalion, hurriedly left a closed carriage and entered the place, the incident was noted. When still later both Borttorff and the Countess emerged and reentered the conveyance, driving rapidly away, he likewise noted these things. Going from the pier whither he had followed the closed carriage, he reported his observations with soldierly dispatch to Colonel Von Ritz.

The Grand Duke Louis meanwhile, waiting in great anxiety, had received the message which had come by the wireless mast. The words were in code, and being translated they read: "France, Italy, Spain, Portugal will recognize. Strike." The signature was "Jt.," which Delgado knew for Jusseret. The Duke had been greatly excited. He paced the room in a nervous tremor. It was arranged that a small steamer, which had stood a short distance offsh.o.r.e since yesterday to relay the wireless message and make it doubly sure, should pick the Duke up as soon as Lapas signaled by a triple dip of the flag that the fortress had been destroyed. The steamer was then to rush the Grand Duke around the cape to Puntal, bringing him in as though he had come from Spain. Those conspirators who were in the capital, strengthened by those who would declare for Louis, with Karyl dead and no other heir existent, would proclaim him King. Lapas would see that the royal salute was fired as the steamer entered the harbor, and the Countess would either meet him and explain all the details or would speak with him by Marconi if she had left the town.

Louis spent the forenoon in an agony of anxiety and impatience. All afternoon he watched through binoculars the white and blue and green flag on the rock above him. He was waiting for the triple dip that should tell him the fortress had been scattered in debris and with it the government. Evidently the King was late going to the a.r.s.enal.

He had imagined it would be earlier. The hours dragged interminably.

Louis walked the stone b.u.t.tress where the flag which he had raised in signal to Lapas flapped and whipped against its staff. At last his binoculars, fixed on the rock, caught the dip of the colors there. With a great sigh of relief the Duke watched to see them rise and dip, rise and dip again. The flag came down the length of the pole--and did not go up.

Panic seized the Pretender. There was no way of talking with the ridge three thousand feet above. It was a climb of an hour and a half by the pa.s.s. Evidently there had been a miscarriage. In the prearranged code of flag signals the only provision for the drooping of the colors on the hill was in the event that it should be wished to stop the explosion.

That would be only in the event of refusal by the governments to recognize; the governments had not refused! Possibly Lapas had turned traitor!

There had also been some unexplained delay seaward. The little steamer, which should have remained near by, was a speck on the horizon, and without her there was no possibility of escape. Wildly Louis, the Dreamer, hurried to his improvised Marconi station and called the ship.

Finally toward evening came a response and with it a message from somewhere out at sea, relayed from ship to ship around the peninsula.

The message said simply in code: "Failure. Make your escape." It was signed "M. A."--Marie Astaride.

Louis rushed, panic-stricken, down to the sh.o.r.e. He and the few men with him paced the beach in the settling twilight with desperate anxiety. The steamer seemed to creep in, snail-like, over the smooth water. Meanwhile binoculars fixed on the pa.s.s showed a number of small specks sifting like ants through the lofty opening. Troops were advancing. It was now the life-and-death question of which would arrive first, the boats from the ship that had stood off at sea a bit too long, or the soldiers coming across the broken backbone of the mountains.

At last the ship had drawn near, and circled under full steam far enough out to get away to a flying start as soon as the Ducal party had been taken on board. Small boats were rushed toward the beach and Louis, the Dreamer, with his party waded knee-deep into the water to meet the rescuers.

At the same moment a bugle call announced the coming of Karyl's soldiery.

As Louis Delgado went over the side, he turned quickly back and, leaning over the rail, gazed through the settling darkness toward sh.o.r.e.

"Do we make for Puntal, Your Majesty?" inquired the captain, saluting.

Louis turned coldly. "No."

The officer looked at the Duke for a moment and read defeat in his eyes.

"Where then--Your Grace?" he inquired.

Louis winced under the quick amendment of t.i.tle. "Anywhere," he said shortly; "anywhere--except Puntal."

CHAPTER XV

THE TOREADOR BECOMES AMBa.s.sADOR

Manuel Blanco was ubiquitous during the first days following the coronation. He listened to the fragments of talk that drifted along the streets. He frequented the band concerts in the Public Gardens and drank native vintages in the wine-shops. He elbowed his way navely into chattering groups with his ears primed for a careless word. Nowhere did he catch a note hinting of intrigue or danger. It seemed a sound conclusion that if the plotters had not entirely surrendered their project for switching Kings in Galavia, their conspiracies were being once more fomented on foreign soil, just as the first plan had been incubated in Cadiz.

One evening shortly after the dual celebration, a steamer laden with tourists lay at anchor in the bay, outlined in points of light like a set-piece of fireworks. Hundreds of new sight-seeing faces swarmed along the narrow, cobbled streets. This would be a great night in the Strangers' Club and Blanco decided to spend an hour there.

In evening dress he moved through the gardens and pavilions of the casino on the rock, where with the coming of darkness the gayety of the town began to focus and sparkle.

The coronation of Karyl had brought to an end official mourning for the late King, and the crepe which had palled the national insignia on all public buildings had been cleared away. With this restoration of public gayety came a liberal sprinkling of uniforms to the throngs that crowded the ball-rooms, tea-gardens and gambling halls.

Blanco was standing apart, looking on, when he felt a light touch on his shoulder and turned to find a young officer at his back who smilingly begged him for a moment in the gardens. The Spaniard noticed that the man who addressed him wore the epaulettes of a Captain of Infantry and the added stripe and crown of gold lace at the cuff which designated service in the household of the reigning family.

He turned and accompanied the officer through the wide door into the lantern-hung grounds, pa.s.sing between the groups which cl.u.s.tered everywhere about small wicker tea-tables. There were no quiet or secluded spots in the gardens of the Strangers' Club to-night, but after a brief glance right and left the Captain led the way to a table in a shadowed niche between two doors. The light there was more shadowed and the tides of promenaders did not crowd so close upon it as elsewhere. As the two came up a third man rose from this table and Manuel found himself looking into the flinty eyes of Colonel Von Ritz.

Von Ritz spoke briefly. If _Senor_ Blanco could spare the time, His Majesty wished to speak with him.

The younger officer turned back into the casino and Von Ritz led the _toreador_ through the front gardens, where the tennis courts lay bare between the palms. The acacias and sycamores were soft, dark spots against the far-flung procession of the stars.

The street outside was crowded with fiacres and cabs. Von Ritz signaled to a footman and in a moment more Blanco and his escort had stepped into a closed carriage and were being driven toward the Palace. They entered by a side pa.s.sage and the Colonel conducted him through several halls and chambers filled with uniformed officers, and finally into a more remote part of the building where they met only an occasional servant.

At last they came into a great room entirely empty but for themselves.

About the walls hung ripened portraits. The decorations were of Arabesque mosaics with fantastic panels of Moorish tiling. It might have been a grandee's house in Seville, patterned on the Alcazar. Evidently this was part of a private suite. Heavy portieres were only partly drawn across a wide window with the sill at the floor level, and through them Blanco dimly saw a balcony giving out over a small garden, and commanding more distantly the harbor and town lights below. From somewhere in the garden came the splashing of a small fountain.

Here Von Ritz left his charge to himself, silently departing with a bow.

For a while the Spaniard remained alone. The room was not so brightly illuminated as many through which he had come on his way across the Palace. Light filtered through swinging lamps of wrought metal encrusted with prisms of green and amber and garnet. The Moorish scheme depends in part upon its shadows. Finally a gentleman entered from a balcony. He was neither in uniform nor in evening dress. His face was smooth-shaven and pleasing.

Blanco fancied this was a secretary or attendant of some sort, and was conscious of slight surprise that as he entered the place he smoked a cigarette with a freedom scarcely fitting the King's personal chambers.

At the window the gentleman halted and looked Blanco over with a frank but not offensive curiosity. Manuel returned the gaze, wondering where he had seen the face before, yet unable to identify it. Then the newcomer crossed and proffered the Spaniard a cigarette from a gold case, which the _toreador_ declined with a shake of his head.

"_Gracias, Senor_," he said, "but I am waiting for the King."

The other smiled, and the visitor noticed that even in smiling his lips fell into lines of sadness.

"None the less," he said pleasantly, "a man may as well have the solace of tobacco while he waits--even though he awaits a King."

The Andalusian once more shook his head, and the other continued to study him with that undisguised interest which his eyes had worn from the first.

"So you are one of the two men," he said, "who learned what all the secret agents of the Throne failed to unearth. Incidentally it is to you that the present King owes not only his Crown, but his life as well." He paused.

"After all," he went on, "it is neither your fault nor Mr. Benton's that the King could have done very well without either the Crown or his life.

You restored something which perhaps he held worthless.... But that is his own misfortune."